Václav Havel(Speech in Philadelphia - The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern world, 1994)

Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.

Václav Havel(Disturbing the Peace, 1986)

The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him.

Václav Havel(Disturbing the Peace, 1986)

The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.

Václav Havel(International Herald Tribune, 1990)

Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy.

Václav Havel (Letter to Gustav Husak, 1975)

The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.

Václav Havel(New Year Address in Prague, 1990)

The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.

Václav Havel(Living in Truth, 1986)

None of us know all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events.

Václav Havel(Disturbing the Peace, 1986)

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Václav Havel(Disturbing the Peace, 1986)

An amalgamation of cultures is taking place. I see it as proof that something is happening, something is being born, that we are in a phase when one age is succeeding another, when everything is possible.

Václav Havel(Speech in Philadelphia - The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern world, 1994)

As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.

Václav Havel(Disturbing the Peace, 1986)

Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity...

Václav Havel(Essay - From Prisoner to President)

People have passed through a very dark tunnel at the end of which there was a light of freedom. Unexpectedly they passed through the prison gates and found themselves in a square. They are now free and they don't know where to go.

Václav Havel

A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clearsighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemorality of everything human. It is only this awareness that can breathe any greatness into an action.

Václav Havel(Disturbing the Peace, 1986)

Because it is founded on the search for universal laws, it cannot deal with singularity, that is, with uniqueness. The universe is a unique event and a unique story, and so far we are the unique point of that story. But unique events and stories are the domain of poetry, not science.

Václav Havel(Speech in Philadelphia - The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern world, 1994)

Man is not an omipotent master of the universe, allowed to do with impunity whatever he thinks, or whatever suits him at the moment. The world we live in is made of an immensely complex and mysterious tissue about which we know very little and which we must treat with utmost humility.